Confidante
by mojo-nojo
Summary: A 'Missing Moment' set during 1x21 "Ragtag". Skye cannot keep the turmoil that she feels inside anymore, and Simmons is the recipient. Spoilers up to 1x21.


**SUMMARY**: A 'Missing Moment' set during 1x21 "Ragtag". Skye cannot keep the turmoil that she feels inside anymore, and Simmons is the recipient. Spoilers up to 1x21.

**DISCLAIMER**: I do not own AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. or any of the characters herein. I'm just a fan that likes to play in the world.

**A/N**: This is a one-shot set a little bit before the beginning of episode 1x21, when the gang is chilling in the conjoining motel rooms working hard like they always do. I'm a Skye/Ward fan for sure, but like so many fans out there, I miss the Skye/Simmons friendship that seems to not be so prevalent in the latter part of Season 1, and this makes me sad. So I'm fixing that with this.

* * *

Skye squints at her laptop, trying anything and everything to find some link or clue that will help the team find Garrett. Fitz is lying at the foot of Skye's bed, staring at the ceiling, while Simmons is perched on the other bed in the room, flitting through some paperwork. Skye can hear May and Coulson talking quietly in the adjacent room, their voices occasionally being drowned out by loud ripping noises and faint squeaks from a permanent marker racing across rough paper. The young agents – or 'former agents', really – would turn to look at the cracked door that led to the connecting room when the older agents' voices would become louder, disagreeing on some part of the plan they were concocting. They would freeze for a moment or two until the voices would lower and they were back to hushed tones. This goes on for about a half hour until Fitz finally decides to break the silence between him, Skye, and Simmons.

"I still can't believe this is all happening."

Simmons and Skye look up from their work, frowns etched on their faces. "It is a lot to process, Fitz," Simmons says, giving a sad smile and picking up another file.

"I mean, it's one thing that HYDRA is back. Okay, fine, they're back. Or they never left, or whatever… But it's another thing for Ward to be a part of it! I just –"

Skye stares at Fitz with a stony expression. Simmons sucks her lips in her mouth, biting down slightly and sighing.

"I just don't believe that Ward can do something like this. There must be something wrong with him! Garrett must have –"

"Garrett gave him an option, a choice. Ward chose wrong. End of story." Skye shakes her head slowly and turns back to her laptop. When Fitz gives Simmons a desperate look, she simply shrugs.

"I don't believe that. I think Garrett forced him into this. He must have blackmailed him, or threatened him to do it. I know that if given the choice, Ward would have chosen SHIELD –"

"And how the hell would you know that, Fitz?" Skye slams her laptop shut and shoves it to the side. "How could you possibly know what is going on in that twisted psychopath's head? You've known him for how long? Like, five minutes?"

"He's our _friend –_"

"Well, our _friend_ has killed countless people. He killed Hand, Koenig, and others. He helped let all the monkeys out of their cages and now it's an 'all-you-can-eat' crime buffet for those _psychopaths,_ including the one that shot me. Twice!

"You are naïve to think he's been our friend this whole time. He's been a lot of things while pretending to care about us, but a _friend_ isn't one of them."

Skye, shaking with anger, shoves off the bed, causing Fitz to almost fall off himself, and rushes out the door. If it weren't for the tears sliding down her face, Simmons would have left her alone to breathe and calm down. However, being the scientist that she is, she can deduce that Skye really needs to talk. She needs a friend.

Simmons stands up from her bed just as Coulson and May enter from the adjacent room. "Is everything ok?" Coulson asks, a small paper cup full of coffee in his hand.

"Everything's fine!" Simmons says, her voice a pitch higher than normal. They all raise their eyebrows. "Just fine. Skye's just… taking a break, that's all." Simmons smiles widely, the gesture almost feeling forced.

Simmons keeps the smile on until Coulson and May give each other looks before disappearing into the other room once more. Simmons sighs and heads toward the front door of the motel.

"Oy!" Fitz jumps up from his resting place and grabs Simmons by the arm, turning her back to face him. "Jemma, I didn't mean…"

"Oh, Fitz, I know you mean well, but some things are just hard for some people to hear." Simmons smiles that sad smile and softly pulls her arm out of Fitz's grasp. "She doesn't want to hear about Ward being a 'good person' because she _can't_ hear that now." She looks out the window and sees Skye sitting on one of the pool chairs, head in her hands. "I'm going to talk to her, okay? You stay here," she adds before Fitz can answer. Simmons knows he would want to come out and help, but she is afraid he would make it worse for the hacker.

Simmons heads outside and quietly sits in the chair next to Skye. She doesn't talk until Skye finally pulls her head up from her hands and turns to her. Skye's eyes are glassy, but there are no more tears. Simmons debates on putting a consoling hand on her, but decides against it.

Skye breaks the silence first. "I'll apologize to Fitz later."

Simmons scoffs. "Oh, don't bother. He has a thick head, that one. No point in making it thicker."

A choked laugh escapes Skye's lips, making Simmons grimace slightly. "Skye…"

"I'll be fine." Skye pulls her knees to her chest and hugs them tightly, staring into the pool that would be rather inviting on this warm day if the circumstances were different.

"I know you'll be fine, that's not the problem." Skye gives Simmons a questioning look and Simmons scrapes her chair on the concrete until it's facing Skye's and she doesn't have to crane her neck to look at her. "The problem is you're not fine _now._"

Skye sighs, but Simmons doesn't give her an out.

"I'm not an idiot." That surprises Skye.

"I – I didn't say you were –"

"Then don't treat me like one." Simmons gives her a stern look. "Look, we all saw the footage from the Bus. After we came back to the Providence base, and you, Ward, and the Bus were nowhere to be found, we had to resort to surveillance footage to try and piece together the untold story. Of course, all of the feeds were cut. Except for the one in the cargo hold of the Bus. We saw you, with Ward… Holding hands."

Skye turns her eyes downward.

"Even if that was a front for Ward, to get him to trust you, it doesn't explain why that action would occur in the first place. Unless your relationship with him was escalating to the point where you both were comfortable holding hands, in which case it has become more than just an 'SO/Rookie' relationship –"

"Okay!" Skye throws her hands in the air to get the scientist to shut up. "Damn, girl, you are too observant for your own good." Skye runs her fingers through her messy brown hair and holds the back of her neck, looking upward. Simmons stays patient.

"Okay," Skye repeats, glancing at the motel room where Fitz, Coulson, and May were still residing. "Ward and I – we've… kissed. A couple of times."

Simmons inhales sharply through her teeth, making a sort of hissing noise, but she stays silent, urging her to continue.

"It started when we were getting attacked at the Hub. Ward and I were stuck in one of the utility closets for a bit, trying to figure out a way to get past this huge group of guys. He had this stupid plan of going out there alone with nothing but a couple of ICERs to take them down. It was suicide, and I told him as much. He went into this whole self-loathing tirade, where he said he thought he should die because he killed an innocent man. I told him he thought he was going to hurt the team, but he said he thought Nash was going to hurt _me._ Next thing you know, I just… kiss him. It wasn't planned or anything, it just happened. I thought he was going to die, I mean, it was twelve to one in that hallway."

Skye pauses as she remembers the kiss; how she was never able to surprise her SO, but on that day she did. She remembers the way his lips were frozen in shock when she kissed him. How chaste it was, and how she just wanted to stay in that closet and kiss him properly and have him return the favor.

Skye shudders and sneaks a glance at Simmons. Her eyes are wide, her fingers laced together and neatly folded on her lap, her pink lips parted. Clearly Skye is good at surprising a lot of people.

"And, um –" Simmons clears her throat. "He returned these feelings?"

"I –" Skye stops and frowns. Of course, she remembers the conversation she had with him on the Bus, when she was handcuffed to the staircase in the cargo hold. The conversation where he told her that even though he had a mission, a job, his feelings for her were never false. They were real. But as she dwells on his words now, she has no idea if he really meant them, or if he just wanted the damn hard drive decrypted.

When Skye closes her eyes she can see Ward's face in the darkness. She can see his wide eyes and how they pierced her own. How they looked like molten chocolate when he said his feelings for her were real and grabbed her face, almost willing her to understand. His touch was gentle, his breath soft on her face. Now that she was nowhere near him she wanted to believe he was full of crap. That he was only saying what he needed to say to get what he wanted. She wanted to believe this, but she couldn't. Looking back on it now, seeing his dark eyes, feeling his touch, remembering his kisses, there is no way.

"Yes, he does," Skye whispers.

"He _does?_ As in -?"

"As in 'does.' Present tense, Simmons."

"Oh my." Simmons leans back in the chair and looks up at the blue sky, fanning her face with her hand. "Well, that is most certainly a predicament."

Skye wants to laugh at her comment, but she knows Simmons is being serious, not ironic.

They sit in silence for a few moments before Simmons breaks it again. "When was the second kiss?"

"What?"

"You said you've kissed a couple of times. The first was at the Hub, where was the other one?" Simmons eyes grew wide. "It wasn't when you _knew—"_

"No! Oh, God, you're kidding, right? No." Skye lets out a humorless laugh. "No, it was at Providence, probably about five minute before I found out the truth."

"Oh my," Simmons sighs again.

"Yeah. Kind of a mood killer. And finding Koenig didn't help."

"You found Koenig? In the pantry?"

"Yeah, that's how I knew –" Skye stops and gives Simmons a somber look. "Did you –"

"Yes. I found Koenig. Around the same time Fitz found your message."

"I'm sorry," Skye says, looking at the pool once more. Simmons simply nods. Another silence is shared.

"We were finally having that drink," Skye begins, causing Simmons to turn back to her. "He offered to have a drink and talk back in the utility closet. He said he didn't want to talk when I offered a while ago, after the Berserker Staff fiasco, because he didn't want to get close to me. Because he couldn't compartmentalize when it came to me." Skye snorts, rubbing a hand over her cheek for a moment.

"We were having a drink, sitting on the couch, and just talking. It got deep pretty quickly. He brought up the not-compartmentalizing thing; how he didn't even want to think of me at all. He said Specialists aren't supposed to 'think' of other people that way. He brought up my shooting; how when he saw me dying, fighting… it just clicked for him, his feelings for me." Skye stops to swallow loudly.

"He said he wasn't a good man. He said things about his past, his family… They were horrible to him. He was just sitting there, so broken, I couldn't help it. I told him he was a good man, that everyone has skeletons. He said we were different, that I was good. I said he was too." Skye smiles an unfriendly smile. "I told him he was_ good._ Then I kissed him. That time, he kissed me back. He kissed me like he _needed_ me, like he really was a broken shell of a man and I was the only one that could put the pieces back together." Skye adjusts her position in the chair to get more comfortable. "The way he was talking, the way he kissed me… Those should have been major red flags. But my judgment was clouded. Ward even taught me about clouded judgment in training. How you need to always be sharp in the field, otherwise you're going to get killed, and possibly your team as well.

"I sure as hell had cloudy judgment that day."

Skye inhales like she's about to continue speaking, but she just dispels the air loudly. She rests her elbow on the armrest of the chair and holds her chin, waiting for Simmons' reaction.

Speechless, Simmons simply leans forward and places her hand on Skye's outstretched leg, the smile on her face trying to be one of reassurance but it just comes off as sad. "Skye, I really don't know what to say."

Skye laughs softly. "You don't need to say anything. Just having someone to talk to is more than enough." Simmons gets a real smile on her face at this. "You're a great friend, Simmons."

"As are you. You know…" She trails off and glances over her shoulder at the motel. "We all love and care for you, Skye. We're a family now, and nothing is going to stand in the way of that. I know things with Ward seem…"

"Insane?"

"That will work. 'Insane,' but we will not let him hurt you anymore." Simmons nods at this, like she's convincing herself as much as Skye. The hacker grimaces sadly. "What?"

"Oh, Jemma, I don't think you can make that kind of promise."

Before Simmons can respond, the door to their motel room flies open and Fitz is hollering toward the girls. "Oy! There's something on the news I think you should see."

Simmons and Skye give each other confused looks before pulling themselves off the uncomfortable chairs. As they're turning toward the room, Simmons stops Skye with a soft hand on her arm. "Skye, everything's going to be okay. It's bleak now, but we'll find a way to make this better."

At these words Skye steels herself and looks at Simmons' face with new determination. "I know we will. And it starts with taking down Garrett and Ward. For good."

Simmons, rather shocked at these harsh words just after hearing such soft and somber ones about Ward, opens her mouth to respond, but then Fitz's voice echoes across the pool area once more. "Come on, you two! It's important!"

"Oh, all right, you mad man! We're coming!" Skye smirks at Fitz and Simmons' interaction as the girls head back to the motel room, ready to begin the next step in their journey. Whatever that may be.

* * *

**A/N:** Ugh, not the best ending, but I wanted to get this out before the finale tonight. Oh man, I'm so nervous!


End file.
